“Siri, do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

While it is extremely farfetched that artificial intelligence might ever be called to a witness stand, an Arkansas murder case has the potential to set a legal precedent that will determine how voice recorded data is treated in the courts. This issue appears to be the new frontier of the big data versus privacy debate, and the outcome relies on the courts’ ability to keep up with technological changes.

Smart home voice controlled devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home are becoming increasingly popular. Upon their entrance to the market a few years ago, it appeared only tech enthusiasts were buying these devices, but now over ten million units are in use. One of these units belonged to a man in Arkansas, who was accused of murdering another man in his hot tub in November of 2015. Local police have since seized the suspect's Amazon Echo, and have subpoenaed Amazon to provide the voice recordings on his device.

Voice controlled devices passively record everything you say, but the data is only saved when the device recognizes its activation phrase. If the data were saved on a device’s hard drive, then authorities would have no issue retrieving data from the device. However, Amazon Echo and Google Home send voice recorded data to their respective cloud servers. This sleight-of-hand results in your voice recordings not belonging to you, but rather to the company that recorded your voice. This presents an issue for law enforcement, as it is much more difficult to obtain a warrant for a third party than it is for a murder suspect.

Traditional search warrants must specify a particular location, and these warrants have been the primary mechanism that allows law enforcement agencies to gather evidence for centuries. The issue with data saved to a cloud is that it is much more difficult to locate where a data point might be located in a network of servers. Because of this, investigators who issue a search warrant on these types of networks essentially ask the cloud provider to conduct the search themselves by handing over all data related to the party under investigation. Law enforcement agencies arrive at another road block if the cloud provider encrypts their data.

Apple has been at the forefront of this debate recently because the company refused to unencrypt the San Bernardino shooter’s phone. Specifically, Apple denied a request from the FBI to create a new operating software that allows law enforcement agencies to bypass encryption securities. Amazon Echo and Google Home encrypt user data.

Broader questions regarding data collection arise when considering how these companies use voice data. Whether or not the data is stored, these devices record whatever sounds they can pick up. The record of your voice commands to these devices are similar to your search history, which is used in targeted advertising. Could Google Home hear you arguing with your spouse, and then provide you with recommendations for a divorce attorney? When aggregated, the commands you issue to your smart home devices paint a detailed picture of you as a consumer. Might Amazon or Google sell these consumer profiles to marketing firms, even though they may not turn it over to the authorities? After all, these companies’ main business is data, which makes you their main product.

It is unlikely that Amazon Echo is the smoking gun in the Arkansas murder case. Unfortunately, the significance of this case is less about the victim, and more about establishing a legal precedent of companies being required to hand over their voice recorded data. Voice recognition technology has advanced beyond the consequences consumers are able to comprehend, and it is even further beyond what the courts are able to control. This is a pivotal point in the debate of big data versus privacy, and the Arkansas murder case could decide the outcome.